N7: Synthetic
by citizenbane
Summary: Commander Shepard may have gotten the glory, but one man did not win the war alone.
1. MISSION

AI

MISSION

Malcolm Quinn watched the door slide to the side before him, his face like granite as he remembered the Captain's words: "It's on a need to know basis, Lieutenant. And you don't need to know. Recover all intel from the base and bring it back. That is all." He remembered himself nodding with a scowl on his face, and the hologram returning with equal emotion. He remembered it flickering away into nothing.

If the man was in the room, it wouldn't have ended that way. Quinn envisioned it ending with his hands around Captain Leonard Peirce's neck. He let the anger fade and inhaled slowly, "Orders are orders." He whispered, but he should've told Peirce to fuck off. The man always gave his team the hard jobs and this time it was no different. He heard of freelance teams guarding supply depots on small colonies and getting paid more.

Quinn pinched the bridge of his nose, and slow shake his head.

He let the ship's COM room fall behind and moved toward the bridge. A hand rubbed through his prematurely graying salt and pepper hair. His dark eyes were unconsciously forced into slits. Quinn took the long walk to the cockpit, passing the mess hall to his right and armory to his left; he went up three steps and was at the hatch.

The door automatically slid open with an ear splitting grind and he half-stepped inside. He gripped the top of the door frame and looked in at the avian humanoid that said in the pilot's chair.

In the eerie glow of the Doppler blue-shift of faster-than-light travel, Quinn could make out the dark skin and facial paint that the Turians prided themselves in, his was white and went all the back to the points that jetted out of the sentiment's skull. "Ryain."

"Problem, Mal?" Ryain's head swiveled to look back. Seeing only half way, he turned fully, facing Quinn.

"We have a job; get everyone to the galley."

Ryain's green eyes looked at him, scanned him with military efficiency. "Problem?"

"Is there ever not a problem?" Quinn eased himself out of the chamber and made a sharp right to descend the ladder to the crew deck.

"Once," Ryain murmured while giving the Turian version of a smile, he then reached across the cockpit to key the intercom, "it was a Tuesday."

His feet hit the metal grating with a harsh twang; Ryain's voice came in on the ships speakers. "Good morning everyone, it's time for a family meeting." The Turian's voice was full of amusement. "Galley, five minutes. Please and thank you."

Smartass. Quinn frowned harder, glanced down at the ground and looked back up seeing an oversized reptilian beast poke its dinosaur-like head out of the nearest cabin. Its skin was mottled brown, bony ridges went up and down its skull; its green eyes were predatory and focused only on him. It did not wear its combat armor, but loose fitting casual clothing that many humans rarely saw. "Ah, a mission."

Quinn stopped in front of him, "Yeah, Wrek." It stood nearly a foot taller than him, his head nearly scraping the ceiling.

"Excellent." The Krogan burst out with a hearty laughter.

Quinn squeezed by him with the few precious inches that Wrek didn't take up. The Krogan finally moved when he got by, the krogan turned back to look inside the cabin. "Wreav, we get to kill something this day!"

The cabin door closed with the words of the other Krogan saying deeply, "About damn time."

Quinn kept moving, eyes glancing into the med-bay at his right. Doctor Catherine White was at her desk, she glanced at him with ghostly, cool blue eyes. He paused for a moment, propping himself in the doorframe which she never closed. "Hello, Doctor."

"Mal, I take it you had a meeting with command." Her voice was formal and very stiff. It was almost artificial.

"Just a little powwow, so yeah" Quinn cocked his head to the side; she wore a t-shirt with jeans and slip-on shoes. An ankle long white lab coat was draped over her. She had fairly light skin and long black hair which seemed to be always tied up in a bun. Catherine was a stunning woman but something about her was off and her personality didn't help either. Over the few months he had known her, the woman is like a cold winter night… During a blizzard.

He hesitated because of the thought, but he remembered she too was also alliance. "They want us to hit a small Cerberus facility a couple of parsecs from here."

"Ah, another time in which they need to use the crew with the most muscle." She quipped coolly. "Couldn't they send an Alliance team, I'm sure our resources could be used elsewhere." She pecked with a finger at the touch screen computer that was mounted into the table. We're more than just thugs with guns."

"I don't pick the jobs, Doc." He voice was a bit too clipped. "They say it's because we get the job done."

"You get the job," White replied. "I'm the one always busy patching you and your men up after they're 'done'."

Quinn forced back a frown, his face remained passive. "It's you're here for."

There was a silence between them before she continued.

"True, but just duck next time some shoots at you," She turned back into the cabin to continue with whatever she was doing. "I don't like plugging your holes every other day, so please, when someone shoots at you. Duck."

"No promises." Quinn continued on.

He came to the second to last cabin, banged hard on the door but didn't expect it to open. "Ethena, two minutes." That was all he said to the person on the other side. Continuing he came to his cabin, typed in the keypad. He quickly added before he ducked inside. "You too, Nichols."

There was a cot straight ahead, to his right was a small desk mounted into the wall with a computer terminal and a stool. A single photo of a team of soldiers grinning at a camera sat on the metal fixture. On his left was the closet. It was the smallest room on the ship but liked it, and it was the only room that had a two inch steel door instead of five millimeters the other chambers had.

The brief solitude brought him comfort.

He sat down on the stool and thought about logging onto the net, see what was the news around the galaxy. But why? It was mostly bad. Ever since Earth fell, human colonies were dropping one by one. Pretty soon humanity would go the way of the Batarians.

He shook the thoughts out of his head and checked his watch.

A quarter to ten.

Nichols will be late. Ethena will be early. The Doc will come in right on time and the twins will be with her. Ryain most likely is already there. He propped his head up and looked into the black computer screen.

He couldn't see his eyes, just the glint of his pupils. It scared him. He sharply rose to his feet and reached down to grab something off his desk.

It was heavy, but the weight was familiar in the palm of his hand. It unfolded itself quickly with the whirring of servos and he looked the pistol over before tucking it into his armpit holster. He pulled the zipper to his coat up.

"Let's get this over with."

The galley was cramped; the two krogan took up the entire back right corner by the cabinets, looking over their shorter peers. They donned their combat armor, one wearing a bright green, and the other wore a deep matte-black.

Wrek was the lighter of the twins, and his armor reflected it, and had the "brighter" personality if that could be applied to the krogan. His eyes were a bright green.

Wreav was darker and sported dark brown orbs that always seemed unfocused, always unsure. Wreav was a krogan by name only, his personality was something else, even his physical appearance made him seem smaller. However, he was also the older of the two and least aggressive krogan Quinn had ever known. He was one hell of a chess player as well. The pair was only in their thirties, literally babies when it came to their species.

The Doctor sat at the table, right up front, a datapad sitting in her lap. The good doctor was the youngest xeno-physiology surgeon on Luna; she was only twenty-seven. That was until the Reaper attack, but she didn't seem to mind, she had been noted for using very rash techniques on her patients. The Alliance didn't take to that well and shoved her into Quinn's crew, and she was glad not to be put up on charges for multiple counts of manslaughter. He wasn't complaining, the doctor had patched up his crew better than any medic he had known in his last eight years in the military.

Ryain wore his typical orange armor; he stood closest to the door. His arms crossed, waiting. Quinn had known the turian for a few years, their fathers were both in C-Sec and they both served in their respective government's militaries. They met after the incident on Eden Prime and became quick friends with their similar backgrounds. Quinn nodded at him, Ryain nodded back.

Sitting next to the Doctor was Ethena Saria and Peter Nichols. Ethena was a purple skinned asari commando and biotic. She wore armor as well, all black with purple highlights. Her eyes were the same color as her skin, but the hue didn't match her attitude and her face gave away too much most of the time. She signed up after New Haven, following her friend Peter Joseph Nichols.

Nichols was the youngest of the team, in his late teens; he sported brown hair and brown eyes. He had a youthful demeanor that could throw you off guard. He was supposed to ship out with the official N7 program but due to current events he was now just a grunt back in his original armor MOS. The kid leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. He wore Alliance camouflage uniform, all gray hues. His cap tucked low on his eyes, on it showed his rank of Corporal.

Quinn wore the same pants as Nichols; his upper half was covered with a sleeveless gray undershirt and a jacket thrown over it that hid the pistol. He wore no hat. His combat boots were dull, unlike Nichol's which held a new shine.

"Captain Peirce called up earlier," Quinn said, "He gave us a new update of Reaper movements, we have to stay away from Palaven, it's currently under siege."

He eyed Ryain but the turian said nothing. "Our credits from our last operation came up." That did get a reaction from them, all stirred a bit. He saw Nichols flash a smile. The Doctor did not even move, her face continued in that stony impassiveness. "Twenty thousand credits each with bonus."

Quinn paused, "Also a few pieces of mail, which has been forwarded to your personal computers." Now that the easy stuff is out of the way. "And a new operation."

In unison, the twins growled with approval. "Who do we kill?" Wrek growled, the krogan slapped Wreav in the back with happiness.

"Cerberus has been giving the Alliance hell." He scrolled through the datapad rapidly. "We are tasked to reacquire some equipment and gather information on one of their bases on the Terminus world of Bastion. If this mission goes how I want it," He eyed Wrek, "No one will be killed."

The krogan growled, "Where's the fun in that."

Quinn did not grace him with a reply.

Nichols raised his hand as if back in school, he could've just spoken up. Quinn looked at him and nodded making no mention of the child like motion since he a bit relieved at the organization.

"What you're saying is: we're getting shot at by a bunch of assholes for a hard drive and a couple of photos?"

"No." Quinn glared at him. "You're doing it because you're getting paid."

"It still seems like a shit tradeoff for a couple of credits."

Ethena nudged him hard, but he hardly budged.

Ryain looked at the younger human. "You have a problem with that, Nichols? I didn't know this was a goddamn cruise ship."

Nichols said nothing. He tugged at his cap.

There was a long silence, Quinn finally spoke. "Any other concerns?"

"How much are we getting paid?" Wreav asked.

Quinn hesitated; the hairs at the back of his neck began to inch up. He had to tread carefully with this question. Finally he managed to say, "Depends, command will treat this on a case by case basis, the more we gather, the more we get paid."

The answer seemed sufficient enough because none of the crew said anything to him. "Anything else?"

The hum of the ships drive core filled his ears.

"Negative." Ryain said.

Quinn breezed through the strategy, the load out of the enemy facility and how it looked. The Alliance patrol which had found, tagged it and even managed to get satellite photos spared no expense on getting a decent count of enemy personal. They estimated between twenty and fifty hostiles. Probably no mechs.

The base itself was situated near the coast on the south-east corner of Bastion's second largest continent. A colony sporting five hundred thousand mixed human-alien residents lived there, sheltered from the war at large. It was the perfect place to hold up and ride the storm out.

For Cerberus it was almost as good, their facility had high barbed wire fencing, five buildings arranged around a large court yard. A Mako –or the Cerberus variant- sat in the middle. From the different timestamps on the photos he saw men patrolling around the facility, at most five enemy forces. Nothing they couldn't handle and with a cracking VI courtesy of the Asari government and Ethena, they would break shut down any exterior cameras with ease.

His crew seemed to approve of the plan. Nichols even cracked a few jokes throughout the briefing. Quinn nodded at them, announced that they were dismissed and watched them file out of the galley murmuring amongst themselves.

He turned around and looked down, the coffee machine was embedded into the wall and was already heated up and ready to go. Quinn reached up into the one of the overhead cabinets and grabbed his mug, slipping it under the facet-like device. He pressed voice activation and said, "Full cup. Three cream. Three sugar."

The machine beeped and an artificial voice said. "Apologies, sir. Please say again."

"Full. Cup. Three cream. Three sugar." He repeated.

"Apologies, sir. Please say-"

"Goddammit." He scowled, "Just give me a full bloody cup of joe."

"Apologies, sir-"It said in the same tone of voice, oblivious to his mounting anger.

His hand balled into a fist and shot up.

Something stroked his arm, "Hitting things usually doesn't work."

"Strange, it usually works for me." Quinn's hand lowered to his side. His head swiveled to the right as he stared at Ethena who was looking up at him. Her eerie green eyes searching his face for what he did not know. He lowered his ball of fingers and heard her whisper in a hushed tone.

"Full cup. Three cream. Three sugar."

The machine obeyed pouring the steaming hot liquid into the white mug. Quinn turned to the machine and back to her, then back to the machine. "Well isn't that some-"

"Sometimes it requires a… deft touch." She said coolly.

She removed his mug from the slot and placed it aside before scooting him out of the way to grab her own from the cabinet. It slid into the slot and she repeated the same order.

"Thanks," Quinn murmured as he picked up his mug, his back pressing against the counter.

Quinn knew very little about Ethena, he knew her résumé. Under that petite exterior was a lethal biotic, an Asari who could strip away his flesh from his bone with ease. She spent seventy years in the Asari military, and was in the commandos for at least a dozen of them. However, from what he knew, she saw little combat. She did not start fights and her aggressiveness was almost nonexistent. She stayed around the much younger Nichols and they even bunked together.

Not in that way, their relationship was more like siblings, or that was how he viewed it. He had heard the rumors of what happened on the world of Asylum. The hordes of reapers marching across its vast plains, a lone outpost against the legions and an Asari mercenary and one Systems Alliance tank crewman, a corporal who held them together. It was very hushed, a general falling apart amidst a siege would look bad for PR. A soldier whose record was so black he dropped out existence. A few medals and a quick review of his service record –he was shoved with in the informal N7 group. Ethena followed suit quickly signing on with them without question.

"Is there a problem, Commander?" She took a sip of her coffee, Quinn hadn't realized he was staring.

"Nothing," He was surprised but he made no indication of it. He took his own gulp of the liquid and felt it burn the top of his tongue. His eyes watered as he lowered the mug away from his lips.

Ethena didn't notice. "You should leave Peter here."

"What?"

"Peter. You should leave him here; he's not suitable for this type of mission." She responded as she took another sip.

"I need an extra gun on this mission."

"You have me." Her voice was flat.

"I need someone to stay with the Doc. I don't want him to be it," Quinn glanced down at the coffee, "That's for damn sure."

She gave a small smirk. "I admire your care for the Doctor, Commander. It's… endearing." She continued. "You and I both know that Nichols is a terrible shot with anything that doesn't go 'boom'. Plus he has more training with the controls of this ship."

"It's mostly automatic."

"Irrelevant. If something happens, one with experience flying such craft should be behind the controls."

"The kid drove Makos for heaven's sake, and that was for an accumulated time of five minutes." He placed his cup on the counter and stared down at her with his arms wide.

"That 'boy' has flown shuttles since he was fourteen, and has been stealing them way earlier. I know you've seen his record, Quinn. Keep him here; it'll save you a body bag."

They stood in silence for a moment.

Quinn finally inhaled sharply, reaching for his mug. "You want to keep him here, that's on you. Go give the kid the bad news."

Ethena downed the rest of her coffee and placed it in the sink. She swiftly left the galley and disappeared around the corner without another word.


	2. DROP

DROP

Bastion was a 'garden world'. No terraforming required, it was a near perfect gravitational pull of point nine-three gee. It sported two moons, the larger Haven was a quarter of the size of the planet while the second, Holdout was only a thousand kilometers in diameter and twice the distance from the planet than Haven was. It was mined to hell, becoming a miniature Omega becoming a cesspool of criminals and mercenaries.

The map of the planet and its moons sat next to Ryain's head as he brought them from their ship and into the atmosphere.

Thick clouds blanked the world, giving them a terrible view of the surface. Quinn leaned down over Ryain's shoulder, trying to get a better look as the black of space turned into the light blue shimmer of Bastion's sky. As the descended he could see the tall, imposing shapes of thunder heads miles high. The white crackle of lighting could be seen lancing through them.

Ryain glanced back. "You all might want to strap in for this."

Quinn rested a gloved hand on the pilot's headrest; he leaned closer to the screens. Ryain's eyes focused on him, "That goes double for you, Mal."

Quinn's head bobbed up and down, "Right." Christ that's one hell of a storm. He met the gaze and moved towards the back of the Kodiak and saw his team sitting there quietly. He settled into the seat next to Ethena.

She shot him a wary glance but said nothing.

"Problem?"

"Please tell me we're not landing in that."

"We're going to fly right over it." He replied. Plus you wanted to come anyway. He remembered how Nichols pulled him aside and tried to lay it into him on why he should be going. Quinn repeated everything Ethena had told him in their discussion, and then some. The kid didn't want to hear that but he accepted it with reluctance, a few hours with the Doctor would do him good. Maybe he would open up a bit and get whatever was nagging him off his chest. "Right Ryain?"

The pilot said nothing but Quinn saw his talon like hands working the controls. "We're in the atmosphere," he said after a few moments. "Weather sats are showing a minor weather disturbance over the Cerberus site."

"How 'minor'?" Ethena perked up.

"Tropical cyclone that's battering the northern continent, there's warning for all settlements in the region." He must be reading a weather report, Quinn noted. Ryain continued. "Sustained winds of one hundred and twenty kilometers per hour, four meter surge and some vortexes probable."

Tornadoes... Quinn hadn't seen one since Earth, ripping through his town on the mid-west plains of North America. His father had a farm there and every summer it would get dicey but they managed to survive. The wheat harvest, not so much. It was the reason his parents went off world to Eden Prime, the weather wasn't as unstable.

Quinn brought himself back to the present. "Get us on the ground, Ryain, in one piece if you will."

"Are you kidding me, Mal? When the hell did we start keeping promises?"

Ryain frowned at the view screen; it was now shrouded in gray, with heavy sheets of rain hitting the camera with wind enforced fury. His angular fingers tapped on the controls, the computer attempted to compensate for each strong gust, it was failing miserably.

To his right and left were smaller view screens, they showed the ships and crew statuses. Ethena was in the yellow; her heart beat going hard and fast. Quinn was in the green and the twins. Are they asleep? He shook his head and looked back at the weather reports. Wind gusts were increasing at one twenty-five kilometers per hour and growing stronger. The gang doesn't need to know that…

He felt his stomach slam into his throat as a gust hit, Damn it. He had flown through a lot of storms in his life time, even though he came from a drier garden world. He had been to the Salarian home world and flew in one of their rainy season storms; it made this look like a walk in the Presidium.

It had been so long ago he had forgotten and wished for the briefest of moments that their lives were not in his hands.

The ship tumbled to the right, he threw one hand up to brace against the bulkhead. The ships virtual intelligence struggled to right the ship.

"Hold on back there," He said over his shoulder.

The craft was thrown forward and back, he pushed the shuttle hard trying to underneath the cloud cover.

With a flick of his wrist he changed his main screen to infrared, it bathed everything in a rainbow of colors, and he saw the coastline as clear as day and the ground below just as well. Trees however would be a problem, but they were still twenty-thousand feet up and falling.

A finger of plasma raced from the heavens to the earth below, it showed up as a stark redline in a sea of green.

The turbulence slowed as if the lightning had given them the A-OK to land. "We're through the clouds," His words sounded horse as if he was yelling the whole time. "ETA, two minutes."

"Dandy," Quinn muttered.

"It was like bugging out of Earth, nothing to it." Ryain nervously repeated, "Nothing to it."

The Kodiak settled on the wet earth just half a klick from the Cerberus facility, Ryain noted that the scanners wouldn't have picked up a damn thing in this storm and they'd be fine –no one would come looking. That didn't stop Quinn from quietly fuming under his helmet, looking at his pilot he saw Ethena propped up against the bulkhead supply crates, trying not to heave.

"Be ready to move." Quinn brushed past her and out into the forest clearing.

The two Krogan stood there, eyes searching the forest with a predatory gaze. They didn't seem rattled by the landing, and as thunder boomed and rolled across planet, they were not shaken. Hardy beasts to the core, Quinn noted.

He approached, Wrek looked down at him. "I don't smell anything." His nostrils flared. Wreav said nothing.

"That's a good thing," The Asari walked out of the ship composed, a cloak draped over her shoulders. "If they knew we were coming they'd probably abandon the facility or shoot us down… And not in that order."

Quinn agreed with a nod.

"Wreav, you're staying here." Quinn let the thought brood in his head. They didn't need two krogan, one is enough. He also knew that Wreav wouldn't mind.

Wreav murmured something and moved back to the ship, Wrek nodded approvingly. "Alright, we're going to approach from the south, recon outskirts before moving in. Simple stuff. Once inside we find the control room, download any data and get the hell out, this place will probably get a nuke from orbit after we report back in." Or don't report back in.

He shouldn't be telling them this, they knew it all too well but it helped Quinn keep his own head on straight. They did a COM check and everything was in the green. A quick call back to Ray and Wreav before the three man team vanished into the woods like ghosts.


End file.
